Mass Effect 2 will be a "richer" experience

BioWare boss Greg Zeschuk has said Mass Effect 2 will be a richer game than the original, promising to tie side-quests into the main story to make them more meaningful.

Having already created the technology to build a further two instalments, Zeschuk can focus on the content within them. He hopes to take a big step up in terms of quality, just as there was between Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II.

"We look at Mass Effect 2 as incredibly exciting. Just the amount of effort and knowledge and know-how that went into building the technology for the first one is huge, and [we now have] the chance to actually make things a little bit richer," Zeschuk told MTV Multiplayer.

"I think with Mass we just wanted to say, 'Let's make a whole bunch of planets for people to explore.' They all encapsulated, amongst themselves, some fun stories to do. Some kind of spanned among each other. But [now] we're taking it to that next level of tying them into the central story as well."

Mass Effect presented you with a whole galaxy of planets to fly to and explore, and rewarded you with extra experience, money, and equipment for doing so. Other than that, there was no real tangible reason to venture off the main story path.

Another way Zeschuk plans to make this more exciting and less repetitive is via "better technical ways; smarter ways to auto-generate content".

Despite all this, Mass Effect was released on Xbox 360 last year and made the top 10 in both yours and our picks of 2007.

BioWare has since announced a PC port of the role-playing game, which will be out in the US in May. EA has yet to date it for Europe.